Join us LIVE at 1pm EST @janomehq Instagram page this afternoon for our NEW series, “Ask Janome HQ” as we read and answer your questions asked by e-mail and on our Janome Canada social media. When possible, we’ll also try to answer questions LIVE, so tune in to join in the FUN while we learn about all things Janome.
Adding to the theme of the new year, this NEW series, “Ask Janome HQ” will be presented every other week. We’ll still be presenting our very popular, ongoing series “Janome’s Magical Machine Mystery Tour” in the alternate weeks, so be sure to FOLLOW us so you don’t miss a post!
Don’t worry if you can’t make the LIVE presentation, though. They’ll be stored in the IGTV icon on the Janome HQ Instagram Page and later posted as videos on the Janome HQ You Tube channel. A new Playlist, “Ask Janome HQ” has been created so you can easily find all the presentations there if you miss a LIVE presentation or don’t have an Instagram account.
Follow us on the Janome HQ Facebook page to see what’s new at our Janome Canada Headquarters, our Janome HQ, and click HERE for more information about our ONLINE classes!
Write me at Classes@Janome-Canada.com (copy and paste in a new browser if needed) for more information about eventual on-site classes (when it’s safe) at The Janome Sewing and Learning Centre in Oakville, ON; Janome Canada’s Head Quarters.
2019 saw the debut of the fabulous Janome Continental M7 Professional, a machine with many new Janome patented features and the generous 13.5″ throat space; the largest home machine in the domestic market,
This year, 2022, Janome is excited to bring you yet another ground-breaking machine! Press play for details.
Celine is back LIVE every Tuesday at 3pm EST on the Janome Sewing Machines Facebook page for an entire month of sewing fun and education to help you get the most from your Janome machine!
Today, Celine will show you different approaches, different techniques to quilting different shapes in quilt tops. There are many standard sizes of finished quilt blocks; 3inch, 6inch, or 12inch, or example, and many quilting patterns designed to fit and fill those spaces.
But, sometimes our piecing isn’t always as accurate as we’d like. How do we quilt a block which is a little “wonky”? Celine shares with you some ideas and inspiration.
Check out our handy bilingual Janome Accessories Guide or click on the Accessories Tab onJanome.CA. to find the presser feet and accessories compatible with your machine. Click the Products tab, then scroll down to find “View all Accessories“. Click there to access the Search Box or to scroll through the pages to find the accessories you’d like. Click on the picture/description to find the Part Number and machine compatibility. And, as always, check with your fabulous Janome Dealer!
Bilingual Janome Accessories Guide on the Janome.CA website
Don’t worry if you can’t make the LIVE. All of the presentations will be saved under the Videos tab of the Janome Sewing Machines Facebook page. Use the Search Box to find all the videos with CelineRoss.
Don’t have a Facebook account, don’t worry, they will be uploaded to the Janome HQ You Tube channel under the Facebook Live playlist to enjoy whenever you wish!
Do you remember when you were a child and you were given a bunch of craft supplies and you just went crazy? Glue and glitter went everywhere, including your face. You mixed all the colours of clay together and found out it makes brown, not rainbow. How many of those “art” pieces do you have today? If your Mother is like my Mother-In-Law you may have a few, but most of the pieces are long gone. What you do have to show from it is a whole bunch of knowledge that probably carried over into a surprising number of areas of your life.
My real sewing journey started as a quilter. To me. quilting is very straight forward. You almost always use a straight stitch. Everything is orderly and there aren’t a lot of surprises. As my sewing interests started to spread, I was often trapped by fear.
When I thought about making a garment or embroidering something it was overwhelming. There were new, unfamiliar terms and techniques and different materials that I didn’t understand. I would just throw up my arms and say “I can’t do it!”. I had lost sight of my inner child. I had lost the bravery to just dive into a project, try all the things and end up with maybe a disaster, but most certainly a lot of new knowledge in the process.
Mistakes and failure aren’t a bad thing if you learn from them! They are often the best way to learn.
This year I’m tacking a whole bunch of garment sewing. I want to be able to not only make my own clothes, but alter the ones I do have. Mistakes will be made, including sewing things together backwards, choosing the wrong fabric and getting the fit all wrong. I know by the end of the year I will have learned a whole lot and will have some beautiful new pieces in my wardrobe.
I challenge you to do something similar this year. Let your inner child play! Be bold, make the mistakes and have a good laugh over your failed creation. Then take those lessons, learn from them and watch magic happen!
I’ll be popping in here throughout the year to share some of the lessons I’ve learned and show you how my journey is going. Even the fails. Let me know in the comments if there are garment making topics you would like me to explore. We’ll learn together!
In this article, I’ve included some of the machines that I will be using this year. I’m really lucky that Janome Canada has given me access to some amazing machines. Do you need all these machines to make garments? Absolutely not, you can make garments with our entry level sewing machines, too! I’ll make sure to include all levels of machines in my posts this year so no one will be left behind.
Regardless which Janome CoverPro machines you have; Janome CoverPro 900CPX, Janome CoverPro 1000CPX, Janome CoverPro 2000CPX or the fabulous NEW Janome CoverPro 3000 Professional, you need to keep your tools and accessories to use with the machine organized and easy to find.
Our Janome Canada educator, Celine, created this cute organizer to prop-up on the table or to hang on the wall, as it’s both practical and decorative. It’s a great project to help you learn and get comfortable with adjusting your machine for the different functions and types of stitches. Bonus is that you likely already have all, or most of the materials at home! The Hand-Embroidery Hoop is easy to find at most discount and craft stores, or perhaps you’ve had one kicking around for years, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. Well, dig it out! It’s time to have some fun!
Janome CoverPro 3000 Professional
Celine found inspiration for this project on Pinterest. There’s no pattern to worry about as the size and shape of your hand-embroidery hoop is what you’ll use as a guide to cut out your fabric. It’s always a good idea to use a larger piece of fabric then trim it down, if needed, from the back once it’s hooped.
Organize your tools and accessories in style with the Janome 100th Anniversary Fabric!
Use whatever fabric you’d like. Wovens, or knits, it’s up to you. Celine used regular quilting cotton.
Cut the fabric 2” larger than the hoop. You’ll need 1 fabric for the background and 1 fabric for the pocket.
On the background fabric (Celine used white) Sew a row of each type of stitch your machine can create; for example, the Janome CoverPro 3000 Professional has a Chain Stitch; 2 Needle Narrow Cover Hem; 2 Needle Narrow Top Cover; 2 Needle Wide Cover Hem; 2 Needle Wide Top Cover; 3 Needle Cover Hem; and 3 Needle Top Cover.
Cut the pocket fabric (Celine used the Janome 100th Anniversary fabric) the same size as the background fabric and fold in half.
Place the pocket fabric on top of the background fabric so the fold is across the width of the embroidery hoop and the cut edges meet across the bottom of the hoop. Pin in place with the pins facing the wrong side of the background fabric.
Divide as you wish to create the pockets. Keep your scissors/ snips handy, as well as a seam ripper (an unfortunate sewing necessity, lol!) screwdriver to change the needles. Extra needles are always great to have on hand, so store them in this organizer so you have them at the ready when you need them.
Mark your fabric on the wrong side of the background fabric. You’ll be sewing with your pocket fabric down against the bed of the machine with the background fabric on top – you’ll understand why in the next step.
Sew on each line with the Chain Stitch; using 1 needle and the Looper; available on everyJanome CoverPro machine. with the wrong side of the background fabric facing up. Use a thick thread (30-12wt) thread in the looper and adjust the stitch length accordingly – the thicker the thread, the longer the stitch. The looper stitch will be more pronounced with the thicker thread, which will be on the right side of the pocket fabric. Begin and end with long thread tails.
Pull the threads to the wrong side of the background fabric and tie to secure.
If you’d like, cut another piece of background fabric or use a piece of iron-on interfacing to neaten up the wrong side of the background fabric. This basically acts as a lining. The fusible, especially will also help secure the threads in place.
Since Celine’s sewing is all about adding the little finishing touches, she bound the raw edge of the fabric on the sewing machine before placing it in the hoop. Be sure to catch all thickness going around the pocket and if you decided to line the wrong side of the background fabric. This not only neatened the raw edge of the fabric, it also created a casing through which Celine strung a cord so she could tighten the fabric around the inner hoop. If you choose not to bind the edge, you could also couch over the cord using a wide zigzag stitch and the Janome Beading Foot. Did you know there’s also a Beading Foot for the sergers? Check with your Janome Dealer for details!
Janome Tape Guide Foot – Celine kept the left edge out of the bias strip out of the guide on purpose so you could see the guide which holds your strip in place.
Janome has many options available to attach binding. For the sewing machine, the Janome Binder Foot is a snap on foot for many models, as is the Janome Taping Guide Foot (TG), which is the foot Celine used, as pictured above. The Janome Quilt Binder Set is another popular option you might use. Check with your Janome Dealer to be sure you get the correct presser feet and attachments for your machine. There’s also two sizes of Tape Binders (42mm-12mm and 32mm-8mm) for all CoverPro machines! It’s wonderful to have a variety of presser feet and accessories at your fingertips so you can experiment to see which is best to use for your project at hand. Keep them all neatly in place in your new organizer!
Celine attached her binding on the Janome Continental M7, but any sewing machine will do. Use whatever stitch you wish, but there’s often so many stitches you might not use very much, like the Stretch Stitch (which looks like Lightning Bolt) for example, so why not use it here to get familiar with it?
The Stretch Stitch is different from the regular zigzag stitch as it sews at an angle and acts and looks like a straight line of stitching when sewing knit fabrics together. It gives the seam the stretch it needs to avoid popping the threads. In many Janome machines, you can alter the default stitch width and length. Consult your Instruction Manual for details.
The stitching is beautifully consistent, as is the width of the bias binding strip using the Janome Tape Guide Foot. Be sure to leave the the ends free if you wish to string the cording through.
Since Celine loves to embroider; she often says she “wears her machine” as she’s added embroidery to so many garments, she added the name of the machine on the organizer, as well as the kind of fabric used. It’s great to have a project which incorporates many machines as so many of us have more than one Janome machine so they all get some use. For those who don’t have embroidery capabilities, perhaps you could stitch the name of the machine with the fonts built-in to your sewing machine, or write out a label by hand, or use a heat-transfer label in your printer with your computer. There’s sew many options, do what’s best for you!
In typical Celine fashion, the back is just as beautiful and neatly finished as the front!
As mentioned, this organizer can be created for any machine, but Celine specifically focused on the Janome CoverPro machines; Janome CoverPro 900CPX; Janome CoverPro 1000CPX; Janome CoverPro 2000CPX and Janome CoverPro 3000Professional. Contact your Janome Dealer to arrange a test drive!
As a Janome Educator, it’s been great fun and very rewarding for me to meet so many fabulous Janome fans and fellow users over the years. Sharing information; all the tips and tricks; sharing the projects and samples I’ve created using the various machines and all the goodies Janome has to offer, or, as I simply put it, to share the Janome love!
Me sharing the love is all part of the job I dearly love for the company I dearly love, but imagine my immense surprise and moments of joy and gratitude I felt when I received a very special gift made with lots of love from one of our Janome users.
Alice G. is a very special lady who I met when I first started making my rounds over 5 years ago presenting education events to the various Janome Dealerships. Alice attended my very first education event, then later attended every event whenever I was in her area. She always brought lots of questions and enthusiasm, and even a project or two to show me what she made using her beloved Janome MC 15000. Alice is a very accomplished sewist, and makes beautiful garments, but she also spends a lot of her time sewing for her furry friends and those at her local animal shelters.
Just in time for Christmas last year, Alice surprised me with this adorable, cozy, colourful, and reversible blanket for my cat, Raja, who my partner and I just refer to as, “Kitty”. Alice even addressed the gift bag to Michael and “Kitty”, lol!
Embroidering through 2 layers of soft, textured, fluffy and stretchy fabric can pose some challenges, but, as always, the Janome MC 15000 QuiltMaker was up the job. Given the size of the embroidery, the included SQ23 9.1″x9.1″ embroidery hoop or the larger GR 9.1″x11.8″embroidery hoop would accommodate, but, for these thicker, bulkier, hard-to-hoop fabrics, why not try the special Janome ASQ22 8.6″x8.6″ AcuFil Quilting Hoop?
Janome ASQ22 AcuFil Quilting Hoop comes included with all versions of the MC 15000.
The Janome ASQ22 AcuFil Quilting Hoop is not a traditional embroidery hoop as it as no inner hoop. Instead, it has magnetic strips around the perimeter of the hoop and uses large magnets to hold the fabric in position, as the photo above demonstrates. It’s a fun and efficient way to get your quilting done, but to also embroider through all layers of fabric, especially if those fabrics are thick and lofty like Minky, Cuddle and terrycloth. For more about the Janome AcuFil Quilting system, watch the video on the Janome HQ You Tube channel.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a Janome MC 15000 QuiltMaker or previous versions. There’s a special AcuFil Quiting Kit for the Janome MC12000 and a separate AcuFil Quilting Kit for the JanomeMC550E, MC500E, MC450E and MC400E. Check with your Janome dealer for details!
The blanket measures 18.5’x27.5″ so it’s a good, generous size for kitty to snuggle under, but I’ve actually used it to add some extra softness and some extra beauty to kitty’s very old and raggedy bed, which sits on a trunk at the foot of our bed.
For years, I’ve been saying I’ve wanted to sew a new cover for kitty’s bed; one which is removable so I can wash to freshen-up and put back into place. It’s been one of those projects I never get around to on my TO DO list. Can anyone relate? lol! Until that time, Alice’s cozy and adorable blanket does the trick purr-fectly!
Kitty and I thank you SEW much, sweet Alice, for your very thoughtful, generous, and very practical gift! And, of course, thank you sew much for sharing the Janome love!
Do you have a special furry friend in your life who could use a soft, cuddly blanket like this? If you don’t have one at home, perhaps you’ll sew and donate a few little blankets for the animals in your local animal shelter to bring them a little more comfort and warmth this winter. We’d love to see photos if you do! Be sure to tag us @janomecanada @janomehq #sharethejanomelove #janomelife on our Janome Canada/ Janome HQ social media.
Join us LIVE at 1pm EST @janomehq Instagram page every Wednesday afternoon for our series, “Janome’s Magical Machine Mystery Tour” as we highlight a different machine in the Janome line. From entry level to Top of the Line; embroidery machines; longarm quilting machines; sergers and MORE, including some fabulous partner products to compliment those machines!
What machine and Janome goodies will we talk about this week? It’s aMYSTERY so you must tune in each week for the big reveal! Don’t worry if you can’t make the LIVE presentation, though. They’ll be stored in the IGTV icon on the Janome HQ Instagram Page and later posted as videos on the Janome HQ You Tube channel.
Follow us on the Janome HQ Facebook page to see what’s new at our Janome Canada Headquarters, our Janome HQ, and click HERE for more information about our ONLINE classes!
Write me at Classes@Janome-Canada.com (copy and paste in a new browser if needed) for more information about eventual on-site classes (when it’s safe) at The Janome Sewing and Learning Centre in Oakville, ON; Janome Canada’s Head Quarters.
Celine is back LIVE every Tuesday at 3pm EST on the Janome Sewing Machines Facebook page for an entire month of sewing fun and education to help you get the most from your Janome machine!
Today, Celine will show you more quilting fun as she breaks the rules to show you the FUN and freeing techniques of Improv piecing!
There are no rules; no Quilt Police when it comes to Improv piecing. It’s the perfect technique to use to clean out your scrap drawer, as even the tiniest pieces can be used. No need to measure ahead of time, or worry if you have enough fabric. If a piece is too long, just cut it off! If it’s not enough, just add to it to make it bigger. Celine shares all the fun details!
Check out our handy bilingual Janome Accessories Guide or click on the Accessories Tab onJanome.CA. to find the presser feet and accessories compatible with your machine. Click the Products tab, then scroll down to find “View all Accessories“. Click there to access the Search Box or to scroll through the pages to find the accessories you’d like. Click on the picture/description to find the Part Number and machine compatibility. And, as always, check with your fabulous Janome Dealer!
Bilingual Janome Accessories Guide on the Janome.CA website
Don’t worry if you can’t make the LIVE. All of the presentations will be saved under the Videos tab of the Janome Sewing Machines Facebook page. Use the Search Box to find all the videos with CelineRoss.
Don’t have a Facebook account, don’t worry, they will be uploaded to the Janome HQ You Tube channel under the Facebook Live playlist to enjoy whenever you wish!
It’s always fun to start off a new year with an exciting new project, so I usually spend the time between Christmas and New Year’s Eve getting caught up on some of my UFOs so I can start the new year off with a clean slate – and a clean sewing room. Can any of you relate? lol!
I started this beautiful Peacock embroidery design pictured below ages ago. In fact, I showed it in progress over a year ago as part of my Janome HQ Instagram Live series, Janome’s Magical Machine Mystery Tour when I demoed the fabulous Janome MC 550E embroidery machine.
Was it really sitting around unfinished in my sewing room for over a year!? I probably moved it around 50 times and told myself I’d finish it “when I get the time.” Well, the time is finally here! Perhaps some of you can relate, lol!?
Transform an old dress shirt by adding a fresh new embroidery design – the Peacock is just one of the many free embroidery designs under the Inspire tab on Janome.CA
I started embroidering this shirt as a sample I’ll use as an example of how you can transform a plain old dress shirt into something unique by adding some embroidery.
You can find many free embroidery designs and project instructions under the INSPIRE tab on Janome.CA. Under the Canadian Projects tab is this beautiful Peacock embroidery design and project instructions to make a quilt, but I decided to use the Peacock design on it’s own. You can always adapt any project to your own needs and desires, but you can use the projects in the Inspire tab as a springboard for creative inspiration.
Fortunately, I left the shirt in the embroidery hoop; in this case, the big RE36B 7.9″x14.2″ hoop, one of 4 hoops which come included with the Janome MC550E, so the design picked up right where I had left off – over a year ago!
Janome MC550E with 7.9×14.2 RE36B Embroidery Hoop.
The fabulous Janome Mini Duckling Applique Scissors are the perfect tool to use when trimming in-the- hoop applique, as in the photo below. The handles are offset, so you can trim right down close to the fabric without the embroidery hoop getting in the way. The lower duckbill part of the scissors prevents the lower layer of fabric from accidently being cut while trimming away the excess fabric of the applique.
If you’re a regular viewer of our Janome HQ You Tube videos and Instagram Lives, you’ll see that I use these Janome Mini Duckling Applique Scissors ALL THE TIME, just for trimming threads at my sewing machines. I love them!
I adapted this Peacock design to include an applique body in denim from an old pair of jeans. Details are in the Peacock Quilt project instructions on Janome.CA.
I purposely did not trim the denim super-close to the tack down stitches of the applique as I wanted that raw edge to be visible after the satin stitches stitched around the edge of the applique. Typically with in-the- hoop applique, a Satin Stitch will stitch over the raw edge of the applique fabric, producing a neat, clean edge. I wanted my Peacock to have a little attitude; a little edge to him to make him more unique, so I wanted the raw edge of the denim to show, instead. Isn’t it wonderful we have so much control and creativity when we sew?
Since this embroidery is rather dense and is on the back of an unlined garment, I like to trim away the excess stabilizer and trim any stray threads, then cover the back with fusible interfacing.
The Interfacing has little glue dots on the wrong side which fuses down to the fabric, while the right side has a soft, brushed texture, which will feel good against the skin.
Follow the manufacturer’s instruction for pressing the interfacing, and be sure to lay your embroidery right side down on a towel or wool pressing mat so the stitches won’t be flattened and distorted when pressed from the wrong side.
What projects were you catching up on over the Holidays? How many UFOs did you cross off your list?
Janome Life 